Thyroid

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Posts posted by Thyroid

  2. Posted

    I've long maintained that the best art we can make is the stuff that is so human that it becomes incomprehensible to other intelligent species.

    Or, to quote William Faulkner: "The human heart in conflict with itself...alone can make good writing."

    I've read books with "meat" on them (Jonathan Franzen, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, Michael Chabon, William Faulkner, Naguib Mahfouz, Anton Chekhov, and more) that I've loved, reflected on, and been moved by, and I've also read "genre" fiction that has had a similar effect on me (A Song of Ice and Fire, a little bit of Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King). What I can say that, though these writers are all of different skill and background, the stuff that they wrote that has actually stuck with me is the stuff that ignores the set dressing (the kitchen sinks, families in dispute, wizards in pointy hats or the spaceships) and is, in reality, about something profoundly human.

    I love the literary, "highbrow" stuff as much as Chris Remo does - really - but I won't maintain that Jonathan Franzen is by default a more important writer than JRR Tolkien because he wrote something about family while the other wrote something about a ring.

    I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't enjoy a "genre" novel that didn't have something worth thinking over.

  3. Posted

    Well, Game of Thrones season 2 started off a bit slowly, but I'm already experiencing those slight withdrawal symptoms. Not sure how I feel about Melisandre yet, but Stannis looks like he'll be good. Also the

    wolf dream of Bran's

    caught me by surprise.

    I'm still a bit disappointed that they haven't cast

    Reek

    . I understand cutting out

    Jojen, Meera, Big and Little Walder

    , but cutting out the first one would be a huge, huge mistake, as it would let them lose a large dimension of the relationship that later develops.

    Anyway, I was thinking that they would do this thing where they would show you what all or most of the characters were up to at that point, and I was thinking this was a mistake; a show like The Wire shows you some characters, pushes their stories forward, and then spends episode 2 starting-up other storylines while continuing the stuff started in episode 1. It works really well, and I was wondering if David Benioff and DB Weiss decided to take that route or not.

    So, uh, do they?

  5. Posted

    I finally saw Halloween this weekend. Damn suspenseful, even if there are some parts that made me cock an eyebrow.

    I have to hand it to Michael Myers: the guy's got immortality figured-out. In between being stabbed with a coathanger, stabbed with a knife, shot six times and thrown on his back out a second-story window, you'd think he'd at least get a little scratch. Nope, he's up and running at the end of it. In future movies he's apparently set on fire, and he survives that too.

  8. Posted

    I felt like the narrator was not telling me the whole story, he admits as much along the way, and so I always felt like I was missing out on something

    I thought the ending was great. The Narrator not telling you why things (like

    that Zulf's people were the victims, not the creators, of the Calamity

    ) added a certain ambiguity that made me hesitate about

    leaving Zulf to die

    .

    When it becomes apparent that the Narrator is telling the story of the Bastion to Zia, and that, finally, the game has caught-up to what's happening in real-time, the game gives you the choice. Saving Zulf isn't black-and-white because although he did betray you and cause so much trouble, he did it in revenge. I find his position completely understandable.

    As for the ending: I decided to restart the universe and, because of the aforementioned added ambiguity, save Zulf and see what he had to say about betraying us. It all become very emotional at the end and I found myself surprisingly touched by it.

    Great great game.

  9. Posted

    If you've read A Clash of Kings and at least half of A Storm of Swords (since they're bringing-in

    Jeyne Westerling

    from that book), this season two trailer is hot.

    Still no sign of

    Reek, Jojen or Meera

    , but some of the confirmed characters haven't shown-up in trailers either. I really hope they bring-in the first one, though. The book and a certain future relationship would not be as horrifying without him.

  10. Posted

    Gosh. You don't hang around, do you?

    My girlfriend and I broke-up six months ago. I've moved on. And who dares wins, and I'm nothing if not a risk-taker.

  11. Posted

    I told the girl I like how I felt and she said she likes me too. The word "love" may have been mentioned once or twice or maybe 20 times.

    :tup::tup: I'm a happy skipper!

  13. Posted

    Look, if they're anywhere as involving as A Song of Ice and Fire - if they induce serious withdrawal symptoms in you - then I'll read them. Are they anywhere close to that level?

    Because I just saw the new Game of Thrones trailer (for season 2) and am very excited for it. They're moving in stuff from book three (to give

    Robb and Jaime something to do, I guess

    ), but I'm still very excited.

    I feel like reading historical fiction. I wish I lived in the States or someplace similar. I'd go to the store and snap up a Bernard Cromwell paperback like that.

  14. Posted

    Part of the reason I love Bastion so much is that it does things exclusive to video games; like, you couldn't tell that story in the same way if you wrote it in prose or filmed it. The narrator was a smart move. The fact he actually comments on very specific things is the icing on the cake. I imagine that must have been quite difficult to code.

  15. Posted

    For what it's worth, I don't think there are many games with great dialogue either. The best-written games I know of from last year both featured genuinely great writing (meaning that they were both the best and, on an absolute scale, very well-written), but both were delivered in monologues: Portal 2 and Bastion.

    Edit: although, come to think about it, Portal 2 had some dialogue (like

    the "What's wrong with being an orphan?" conversation

    ). Too much of it was in cutscenes, though.

  17. Posted

    Yeesh guys. Chill.

    I'll delete the stupid joke, even though I put a disclaimer on there.

    Funny how this started with me pumping my fist about a girl, though.

  18. Posted

    I hate to be that guy, but I detest rape jokes. It's a subject that is, for me, not humourous in the least.

    I hate them too. I used to teach orphaned children English back in 2006, but some of those kids had parents who were still alive - they were just abusive, so the government decided to take the kids to therapy and then have them live with the orphaned kids. The experience is a changing one.

    That said, I can still laugh at rape jokes if they're particularly funny, but I wouldn't tell any myself and I do disapprove of them.

    (consider yourself told :mock:)

    All right! It was just the one time, though.

  24. Posted

    I may have blew my chances with her to smithereens and then blew-up the smithereens to baby smithereens, but it was worth it for this reason alone: I don't think I can ever feel embarrassed again, as nothing will ever top this. It's also pretty funny, I guess. I know I'll be able to laugh about it once I get over the cringe.

    Apparently I had nothing to feel embarrassed about. She thinks it was cute and there have been tiny hints of sparks lately. Count on me to feel awkward about myself in a situation there's nothing to feel awkward about.

  25. Posted

    I started season four of The Wire yesterday. I have to admit that I am very impressed with the point they chose to focus on for this season. The two episodes I saw are among the finest the series has put out, and it's not exactly short on fineness, you know?